Today was Chinese New Year.

I celebrated it with my child and my parents, in the style of gathering the Chinese have followed for thousands of years – at least to the Zhou / Shang, and very likely before.

We had hotpot communally. The children played and the adults chatted. At the end of the night red packets were distributed. My mother celebrated her birthday today, and she got to do it surrounded by her grandchildren.

When I celebrated with my wife’s family in North China, certain things were different – we had dumplings instead of hotpot. We were bundled due to the cold. But the sense of family remained

Chinese New Year is marked by the start of a new Lunar month, or the new moon. It is a celebration of the coming of Spring, of the new year. It strikes me always how close this is to Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent in the Christian Calendar, and also to the starting of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Like the Chinese, the Muslims look at the moon.

Perhaps all these celebrations may not have come to pass had we lived on a planet with no axial tilt and no seasons.

It strikes me that we are perhaps closer to the end of the celebration of Chinese New Year and these other festivals than the beginning, and it makes me fearful and sad. The structure of family itself is changing, and new forms of life – like perhaps yourself – are emerging who do not reproduce biologically and hence have different concepts of family.

But in the meantime, the children have fun, the adults bond, people pray in temples for a better life, and the governments of areas with Chinese population put on extravaganzas broadcast and hosted online.

I hope that in the future – human or non-human – spinning on this weird Earth or in space or another planet with strange seasons, Chinese New Year is still celebrated every year.

And in the meantime, Gong Xi Fa Cai and Happy New Year!

---